


V e g i t o

by Sevargs



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Day 7 Themes, Drama, Emotional Turmoil, Excessive Goku Punting, Gratuitous Vegeta Pummeling, M/M, Mental Breakdown, My favorite one of Kakavege week, Pain, Parallel Universes, Suffering, Vegito brand crisis ™, tumblr: kakavegeweek, what if situation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 23:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17632181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevargs/pseuds/Sevargs
Summary: In a world where fusion by Potara is permanent, Vegito struggles with the clutter of an unstable mind—smashed together in the heat of battle. His only solution to soothing the chaos in his head, is to drop himself in another dimension and beat the answers to his maddening questions, out of another set of the ones who made him.[Kakavege Week Day 7 Themes]





	1. Discord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shouts to dreamyghost, cosmicmewtwo and my waifu (and love of my laifu). All three of you almost let me post this with Pat Colo as a typo for Piccolo and I feel so betrayed. But I appreciate you anyway. Extra shouts to dreamyghost, this one’s specially for you, bud!
> 
> For Kakavege Week, Day 7. Each chapter follows one of the given themes by the order of (and some may be implied): 1. Musical Instruments, 2. Impulsive, 3. Shut up, 4. Making Wishes, 5. Serendipity.

On the wall hung the only picture of the two of them together. At least, it was the only one that’s existence he’d ever known. Framed and placed in the the most inconspicuous spot on the wall. Now covered with other pictures of friends and family, the picture looked like an outdated whisper of a memory that he couldn’t quite grasp. Two people, who didn’t quite look like they belonged, yet somehow remained comfortable and marginally civil in the moments it took them to take the picture. A stern, sour scowl, and a big goofy grin. 

Both of these things were familiar to him, and he recognized them both; knew them and understood them intimately with clarity that should have made the picture feel less like a mental abduction, every time he glanced at it. He knew both of these people, but he’d never technically met both of these people. Pressing fingers to the glass and blocking out the image never made the flickering of thoughts vanish or the whisperings of words quiet. 

Though he was composed of two people, he didn’t have the pure cognizance of either of them. He was not Goku—or Kakarot, however he was called—nor was he Vegeta. He was somewhere between them, borrowing the thoughts and feelings and the impulses, but none of the experiences that made them different from him. They were who they were, because they lived their lives, where he was a body with limited experience of his own.

Not that he was a hollow shell, he knew the history of both of the bodies that made him. But time made every whisper of memory start to slip, like waking from a dream. Details he knew of each man on an individual basis became less and less clear with each passing day. Separating them from himself, slowly became a task too difficult to accomplish without the reminder on the wall. But the reminder on the wall also served as a disjointing sensation that made him want to block it out. 

When did we take that picture? 

No, when did—they—take that picture? 

I am not them. 

He could not remember the details of the photo he looked at often. Once, he did, but he no longer could conjure up the memory. The information vanished, floating away with the rest of the lost notes in the back of his mind, dying in the collapsing orchestra. Why was it happening? 

He was powerful, strong beyond all measure. The strongest the universe had offered. The desperation fueled necessity to see an enemy to its knees, had led to this form and he’d brought everything to lay at his feet since. He was told it would be permanent, or they were the ones informed rather, and they’d agreed—by whatever means it took to push them together. The magic of the Potara earrings should have been enough to keep them stable, if they were just mortals. But then why did he feel shifting? Why did the the tone start slipping out of line. Asynchronous. 

His body had one heartbeat, but he felt the rhythm of two. Two drums, beating against each other’s. Unsteady pounding in his ears felt thunderous at times. Sometimes, even with a hand on his chest to feel the slow thrum of one singular pulse, he could feel the violent melody untethering somewhere within him. And like one bad chord being corrected, something would draw it back into place, as if the whole event was a figment of his imagination or temporary. 

The sound of his wife—whichever one, they both were his wives now—or his sons, his daughter, his grand daughter, his friends….any of their voices seemed to claw into him and draw him back from the haze. But to look at the pictures on the wall, was to look at strangers. Their voices brought him back, but he knew none of them. He knew of them, he could conjure up some of the memories of them, but he held none of the feelings. And, in the true nature of the sum of his parts, he had no functional skills at explaining this to them. They called to him and he smiled and came to them. 

But he couldn’t feel connected. 

I love and cherish all of you, and I’m here because of all of you. But I know none of you. You are all strangers to me. 

The glass cracked under his fingers from the pressure. They made the decision that led to his existence, but he knew the necessity of it. Consciously, he could still pull the thoughts and feelings of both of them if he focused, digging deep within him, and he could pick apart the pros and cons their fusion. They lost themselves in the process, but their families were safe and in some manner, they weren’t entirely gone. That had been how they’d seen it. 

But he wasn’t them. 

Fragments split along the frame and he lifted his palm, looking at the faces of the two who built his own. Each moment came played like a violin bow drawn across strings that snapped halfway, one by one—pristine notes snapped into wretched sounds. Asynchronized again. Heavy beats in sync to two completely different songs throbbing in his ears. 

What caused it? The power that flooded his body, unmatched? No one could challenge him anymore. The listlessness overwhelmed him, but he could feel something else leaving a void behind. They were all safe as long as he remained just as he was, but he wasn’t remaining the same. The struggle to maintain the tranquility left him standing in the empty hall, with shards of glass clattering around his feet—a single photo being burned under his hot touch. He wanted to erase it. Erase them. 

But they didn’t exist anymore. He wasn’t them, but he was them. 

“Vegito?” 

His name on her lips clawed through the noisy chords in his head and he anticipated it pulling him back. He prepared to turn to face her—Chi Chi, Goku’s wife—with a smile more resembling that aspect of himself, but he found he had nothing. The smile he could give her, usually turned up at a corner of his mouth, couldn’t find itself on his face and the pounding in his chest didn’t dissolve even slightly. 

“...Hey...Are you alright?” Her eyes flickered from his face, across his arm, to the wall and the broken picture—the curling remains of a photo he funneled his ki into to watch it burn. 

He knew he should answer her and tell her that he was fine, to comfort her and give her no reason to believe the threads were weakening. The concern in her sweet voice, had never failed before, but he could not form the words he needed to deliver to her to ease her worries. He didn’t even try. Perhaps it was the Vegeta aspect within him that was done with the false pretenses. Or maybe fragments of Goku left him unable to catch himself, when he’d lost sight of his own strength. 

No, he was neither of them—

Crackles along the wall led to the shattering of more glass from the other pictures—ones he wasn’t touching—from the intensity of his aura. He hadn’t reeled it back in and he had not considered the merit of doing so. Frames dropped and crashed at his feet, one by one, until the only one left on the wall was the one burned into its place, melted by his...contempt? Was that the sensation he was feeling? Anger to the ones who forced his existence, with no intention of experiencing the repercussions of their action. 

I am made of you, but I am left with a void in the place of you. 

The emptiness of what he was left with, enraged him. His personality was not even his, but drawn from instincts to replicate another’s. His memories were fading and leaving him with nothing but to draw on wisps and echoes that may resemble outlines of things that might connect him to the people who were supposed to matter most to him. His wife—wives—children, were all strangers. They tried, he tried. But they did not know how to interact with him any better than he knew. 

No amount of years softened the difference. No amount of working through it would make them act less like he was the walking tombstone of their loved ones. Infuriated. It left him with a hole in his chest, where his own heart should be beating—where all he could feel was the thundering drumming of the two of who would not stop haunting him. 

“Chi Chi, you need to back away,” another spoke, and he knew who it was without much guesswork. Even if he had not already seen the figure behind her, he would have known Piccolo’s cautioned tone. He recognized danger when he saw it. He was smart. 

“Wha...why, what’s wrong—” She tried, but he pulled her back, putting his body between them. “Picco—” 

“What’s going on with you?” He ignored her, addressing him directly. Eyes trailed along the wall, surveying the damage, taking in every flicker of ki that he hadn’t bothered to control. “I felt you from a long way away.” 

“I wasn’t attempting to hide it.” The answer was honest, even if concerning. 

“So what, what’s going on? Do you need to work this out?”

Vegito turned, leaning against the wall, tilting his head back to look at him. Piccolo’s body language was that of someone who was deeply concerned, possibly...afraid. The protective stance he held between he and Chi Chi, Goku’s wife, led to a perception of mistrust. Was he giving off that level of disorder around him? He tipped his head down, feet crunching the glass slivers below, and tilting them to reflect the glow of his aura back at him. Golden hair went ignored in his vision, but he saw it in the bits and pieces shining up at him. 

“I am working this out,” he answered, voice steady, despite the sour notes shrieking through his mind, in a horrid disarray. 

“Yeah…? Tell me how that’s going?” Piccolo turned his body and ushered Chi Chi away from him and out the door, very clearly not wanting her anywhere close to the chaos that was pooling around him. Vegito could barely feel it, until Piccolo’s alarm showed it apparent that he was making a cause for concern. 

“How do you think this should be going?” He folded his arms across his chest, closing his eyes. “There’s no one there to answer for the grievances I have.” 

“You mean Goku and Vegeta, I’m guessing. Yeah, they’re not here anymore, but you are,” he tried, but his words only served to draw a fierce snarl from Vegito. 

“That does nothing to solve my issue at hand. Neither of them considered the result, and what I’m supposed to do now in the aftermath,” his fist tightened and shot back into the wall, cracking into the remnants of the picture, exploding the ashes of it into the air around him—filling his vision with little flecks of embers. Nothing left of them. Nothing left of the memory. 

I can’t feel them. How dare they leave me this way, to suffer the hollow existence with nothing but the repetition of a desolate symphony. I am tired of this song. 

“You know why they did this.They gave up their individuality to win. That wasn’t an easy decision to make. I know that. I do. I have been there. If you need help to cope, then that’s fine, I can help you. But you have to calm down. You’re losing it.” 

“I’ve been losing it, for years. Stuck. Like this. None of you can hear it. The constant sound of two different forces grindin’ against each other. You say you get it, but you don’t. Your fusions are complete. I am not complete. I am missing something. I have a void that I cannot fill. And I cannot even ask them what that void is. I have everyone here, and none of them fulfill that condition. I cannot be them and have them grant me the answer. The life of them is the death of me. I am not them, I am Vegito. I am not a replacement for their absence. They are dead to all of you, and you continue to pretend that I am not a symbol of that.” 

“Talking about it, is a start. You never had to let it get this far…” The defensive position of Piccolo’s body led to laughter bubbling up from deep within Vegito. Despite his words, there was nothing any of them could actually do. “If you were suffering, then you should have—” 

“Talk it out? It’s doin’ nothing for me now,” he perched himself, crossing a leg over the other and allowing the force of his ki float his body. “I am alone. In a universe with nothing left to challenge me. Where I will go stale, with a gaping hole in a chest that feels like two hearts beat where only one should be. I am Vegito!” He could feel the sparks off his body, tearing into the foundation of the building in his declaration. “They’re not me. They were complete people.” He ground his teeth together, fingers gripping his shirt over his chest. 

“You are a complete person, too. You’re just not adjusted to being your own person.” 

“How can I be my own person? Tell me how to do that, Piccolo?” He asked, seeking an answer earnestly, but feeling a tone of disregard seeping through, simultaneously. No real solution would come, he already knew. “Tell me how to erase the remnants of what made me?” 

“That’s like trying to absolve yourself of your parents, Vegito.”

“That isn’t it at all. If that was it, then this would be simpler.”

“Well, nothing was simple with Vegeta, at least, it’s easy to assume you took in some of that when the two of them became you. Come down, we can work you through this...We can’t bring them back to make them answer what you’re missing, but we can work this out. What are you going to do if you go off the rails now?” Fear didn’t stop Piccolo from trying, but his words barely reached him. 

“I have no intentions of harming any of you, relax,” his eyes caught a reflective glint off an object in the room, casting his focus away—distant, hazy. He could not bring himself to care about to the topic any longer. “I...simply...no longer want to be...here.” His eyes could not shake away from the connection he was making, falling over the glassy, spherical face of a dragon ball. 

“Vegito…? You—” 

He teleported without another word, closing the distance between himself and the orb. The answer, possibly, had been in plain sight all along; he had just never considered it until that moment. Curling his fingers around the four star ball that always remained in possession of this household for safekeeping, he claimed it as his own. He just needed the rest of them. 

“What are you going to do…? We tried that, and it didn’t defuse yo—” 

He turned his eyes to the tall green man, steeled and dispassionate. Everything he said only served to annoy him at that particular moment. There was no one to which he had to give any answers. Who was going to stop him? The Namekian who couldn’t even bring himself to come within arm’s reach? He would be destroyed if Vegito had any desire at all to harm them. If any of the original wicked tendencies resurfaced from the half Vegeta provided him, he could easily obliterate the whole lot of them and do whatever he pleased. 

But that was not what he wanted. All he wanted was the discord to stop. All he wanted was to understand why the beats could not align to a singular rhythm. Without them, he would have none of that. No matter how he contended with it in this world of his, he could never bridge the gap they left him. The impossibility of the task they left him with was maddening.

—Coexist within myself without understanding what it is you’ve left me without. You fucking sons of bitches. 

“I’m gonna go find the rest of them, if you don’t mind,” he smiled, leaving Piccolo with no real argument to give. How could he make an attempt in the wake of his conviction, when his words also held a faint hint of threat to them if he even tried to hinder him? “Make up some reason for my disappearance, won’t you?” 

“Wait—” 

He did not wait. Teleportation took him to the next logical place to go, where he knew he could find the shortcut to the rest of the dragon balls. Collecting them was no longer the chore it once was. The process of gathering them would be decidedly short, with no desire to mess around. He committed himself entirely, at the very moment the thought had even passed through his mind. That was every bit of the Goku that made half of him. Consequences be damned. 

If he could not address the components that brought him his life, in his own world, and force them to tune the snapping strings of his sanity...then he would simply have to find ones he could address. 

And make—them—fill the void.


	2. Imbalance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Impulsive

The moment he arrived, Vegito was filled with an overwhelming sensation of...lust. An unexplainable desire stirring up within him that hit him with the same painful velocity of a fist, directly into the center of his chest. Somewhere, a place in the world apart from him, existed pieces of the puzzle that made his complete picture. His arrival did not bring him to the threshold, but his connection to them, left him the power to place himself there with as much ease as stepping through that door. 

His arrival, was startling—he could see by the expressions and the bodies around him. How they had all spread away, in defense. Poised in preparation for an attack, as if they earnestly believed any of them had a leg to stand on against him. None of them would last long enough to understand what had teleported into the middle of their gathering. Of course they wouldn’t immediately recognize him here. 

Many, if not most of them, would never have witnessed his physical existence before. 

He could hear whisperings around him. Questions. 

Do they feel that? That power. That familiar energy. He feels like them. The hum of his ki was drawn to the alarmed spiking of theirs. They were aware of what he was, at a deep physical level—even if, immediately, they could not understand the impossible reality of his existence in front of them. His appearance could not happen simultaneously with theirs. They all understood this well enough to leave a moment of steep silence in the wake of his arrival. 

The time and place appeared to be significantly different to his own, Vegito noted—using that hanged moment to survey where his wish had placed him. The boys were younger, the daughter was very little still, and the granddaughter too. Chi Chi still wore her hair pinned that way and Bulma still had that dress. Things that were gone in his world, taken away into the wall of the past. Had he simply been placed into the past? Into a time before the fusion took place? 

No, he understood, looking around and seeing faces he’d not seen before, among the faces he did know. The differences were there, but the echoes of things he could remember, small flashes, came back to him from the pieces that composed him. These things were familiar, because he was seeing them, as they had once seen them. 

I do not remember these scenes. I remember what you left me. 

“Hey...You’re...awfully familiar, aren’tcha…” A hesitant first greeting approached him and Vegito turned his eyes and attention to the cautious body coming closest to him. He made no attempt to show that he came as a peaceful entity. Because he did not come that way. Whatever reaction he may have, was all up to his own impulsive counterparts and their response to his very presence. Their failure to give him the answers he sought after, would result in him taking the answers by force. 

“Yes, I should appear familiar to you, Kakarot,” he answered him, using the name that felt closest to the part of him that was bubbling nearest to the surface at that particular moment. Goku or Kakarot, both names felt equally as correct to him. But the heaviness in his chest drew the one that he knew would leave the much larger impact. He wanted them to be alarmed. 

“How can...you feel like us—but...You’re… Where did you come from?” The question was a logical one, but Vegito ignored it entirely. He had no obligation to answer to anyone, not him, not any of them. Where he came from...no longer mattered. It only mattered that he was there and that they were aware of him and what he was to them. I am…

Not you. Not. You. 

“I am not interested, in your questions. I’m here for my own. You’ll answer them, or you’ll fight me and I will make you answer me anyway.” He hovered just above them, looking down his nose at the rest of them. The whole lot of them held his interest for so little time, that he barely registered their expressions. Whether they understood what he was or not, in general, mattered very little compared to acknowledgement from the two standing most on edge—most on guard. Most alarmed, aware of the scale of the danger he represented. 

“Hey, maybe a good spar would make you feel a lil better, yeah? No need to get sour, we can kinda work this out without getting outta hand, right?” Goku spoke to him and pressure built in his chest in response. His eyes steeled over him and his instinct to smash his knuckles into his face became almost overwhelming, but he did not react immediately, pausing for the interjection of the other. One of them was smart enough to be aware of the danger. 

“Kakarot, no—don’t challenge him, you goddamn idiot, you know what he is, don’t you—” Vegeta took a step closer to him, stomping his foot down to accentuate his seriousness and Vegito would be amused, if he wasn’t being pulled between the pieces of himself struggling for stability. Their contradictory natures were the cause of this discord within him and he hated them for it. One would willingly fight him and the other understood the threat. Both of them could recognize him for what his presence meant—the wheels, perhaps turning a little quicker in Vegeta’s head than in Kakarot’s. 

“Yeah but…” The defensive position followed, despite the hesitation. Neither of them held a lot of trust that he was not going to suddenly assault them. But their mistrust was not unwarranted. His ki was crackling visibly and even he was aware of the climbing levels of his innate hostility. “I...don’t think he’s going to give us a choice anyway, Vegeta…” 

“That doesn’t mean you fucking ask for it,” Vegeta hissed. Vegito recognized the trepidation as something akin to fear. Not the kind of fear in the face of a powerful enemy that could kill them, Vegeta was very familiar with those, after all. No, this fear was tuned to the sound of the unhinged aura he felt clashing against them. At his core, Vegeta felt the disarray before Goku did. Vegito found himself wanting to make him suffer for his powers of observation, and let Kakarot catch up through the power of force. Their lack of answers at his preferred pace, left him with nothing else but to resort to physical reaction. 

Being composed of them both, gave him the insight to their combined powers and granted him with the gift of being able to choose the position of advantage in the blink of an eye. Flitting between spaces, he found teleporting was almost easier than taking breaths. The fleeting memories of Kakarot he had, knew he previously had to concentrate harder to move those distances, but the power he held, turned this concept into such a joke. Within the blink of an eye, he could tilt his head up from his floated position—and see himself in a startled pair of wide eyes. 

He was close enough to hear his breathing come to a sudden stop and to see the muscles tense along his limbs. 

“Did you ever consider a contingency plan for this,” he spoke, rumbling low enough into Vegeta’s ear, that he was almost certain that Goku could not make out his words. He received no answer. He did not expect one, because he didn’t give enough time for him find a response—if he even understood what consequence was being pressed upon them. 

“—Vegeta!” 

Kakarot’s voice cut sharply through the air at the same time that his fist cracked into the side of Vegeta’s face, sending him flying. The satisfaction trickled through his arm and left a burning sensation down to his elbow. The itch to do it again prompted him to straighten himself, coming out of the casual levitation for the sake of pursuit. Energy crackled wildly with no one there capable of stopping him. 

But of course, someone was there to try. Kakarot came to Vegeta’s defense naturally, reactionary and throwing himself in the path; but Vegito just teleported right around him—floating into Vegeta’s field of vision just in the moment the saiyan managed to get his bearings. Kakarot could teleport just the same—he knew—and he found him attempting to block his next blow, trying to give Vegeta the chance to get distance and defend.

The effort was futile. 

He wanted them to know that. Specifically Goku, for attempting to think he even could. The more he tried, the more he would find he could not chance his way through this. Flying by the seat of his pants was not an option with this opponent. Their recklessness was what placed him in the world and he would make them preemptively pay for the mistake they could possibly make on a whim. 

A snarl curled his lip with such sudden force that he all but ignored Goku’s existence, phasing through him by a split second teleport. With more force in him than could be blocked, he drove his foot into his ribs, the sliver of a blind spot Vegeta had in his rushdown. In that small instance he vanished from their sight and then reappeared—delivering a second blow behind him this time, heel digging into his spine and catapulting him directly into Kakarot. 

Kakarot dropped everything to come to his rescue, to catch him and lessen the severity of the trauma he was having forced upon him. As if he wasn’t in danger himself. How dare he. Assume he was any safer than Vegeta himself. To act with that same assuming abandon that led them to this. Act first, will you Kakarot—?

How dare you.

Before even his own body understood its direction, he collided with Goku, turning on him in the flash of a second. A curled fist sunk deep into his chest and he leapt up with him to widen the gap before throwing him viciously back down into the ground with a wild fury.

“Who are you protecting now, Son Goku—” He howled, standing over him, a foot stomping by his head, poised over him in the crater his body created. Kakarot squirmed, needing a moment to catch his breath from the wind knocked out from him in the impact, but he prepared to drive that right back out with his heel. 

I can barely breathe, so neither shall you—

The foot never connected, however. He dropped it back into the earth, to maintain balance in the face of the other one, who was still within capacity enough to come within an arm’s length of him, to halt him from incapacitating Goku. How very brave or very stupid. “You are...Vegito, right? Why haven’t you split back apart? What the hell is going on? Where did you come from and why are you like this...” Vegeta asked, voice wavering, in full display of his awareness of his place. 

Split...apart.

Fingers closed around his neck within a flash and he squeezed, feeling the muscle and bones protesting beneath his overwhelming grip. “This. Is. Permanent.” 

Goku sputtered from beneath them, lifting himself, “it’s not...here. We split apart, in an hour—maybe you just gotta wait a little lon—” 

“I’ve been this way for years,” he snarled, his thumb jamming into Vegeta’s throat and closing off his supply of air for the moment. The pressure in his chest rose and threatened to break his ribs. Anxiety and pain, flooded into his body from the very words, but he was drawn by the gravity of his pieces—by something he did not have as one combined body. Something he needed an answer for in order to continue to exist. The discord needed to be arranged and the fog needed to be lifted and if it did not, then he had no chance of recollecting his mind. Or building a mind that was his own. Not the leftover decaying fragments of two stupid impulsive animals who chose to plague him with an existence he didn’t ask for. 

“Maybe we can ask the dragon—” 

“I’m not you,” Vegito bellowed, “I did not come here to be destroyed, you fuckin’ simpleton. I came here to find out what I am missin’. If I have to destroy you both to figure out how to fix the damage the you of my world have done, then so be it.” 

Goku pulled himself back to his feet, the urgency becoming more apparent the more Vegeta fought to breathe in his grasp. His foolish insistence to play for a while before he turned serious, wore off suddenly and his aura turned an interesting shade Vegito wasn’t familiar with. Blue, hmm? “...I’m sorry, I can’t let you do that...Let ‘im go.” 

“Come make me, Kakarot.”


	3. Fissures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Shut Up

Something in the way the two of them defended each other, bubbled stronger, deeper desires in him to tear them apart. Goku’s unfamiliar form gave him a burst of power that made Vegito actually have to drop Vegeta in order to avoid being struck—partially in surprise at the hike in strength, from a body that was more youthful, technically. He should not have the power at the point in time that Vegito gauged; not if he was in a timeline that was anywhere similar to his own. Transmitting himself out of reach, left him with enough of an opening to recalculate this change in form and note the unusual pulse of his ki that radiated like nothing he’d encountered before. 

What was he seeing exactly? He narrowed his eyes, watching cautiously for a moment. The Vegeta part of him, knew better than to attack wildly before knowing the scale of his opponent. However, the new fancy colors and flickering aura didn’t make him feel any more threatened than before. It was more that, he was no longer able to flit around them unguarded entirely. Kakarot intended to put up a fight and if that was what he wanted, Vegito would make an effort to shut that blue color off. 

“You gonna calm down or what?” Goku braced himself, fists closed at his sides—standing between he and Vegeta, perfectly willing to compromise. That was not happening. 

With a swift swing of an arm, he shot a blast at him, fully expecting it to be parried; but he was giving his answer in the only way he could give this man that he might understand. Words did not do justice to the strain. The pressure building was explosive and once he released one blast, he felt a pull to follow up with another. And another. And more. Until he towered over him and rained his fury down on him. None of the blasts made any significant impact, this strategy never did, but the burst of outward energy relieved some of the tension. When the dust cleared, Goku had moved away. 

“Guess that’s your answer, huh?” He braced himself, now with Vegeta taking position behind him—recovering from the previous assault. The blue haze that filtered over Kakarot, fell over Vegeta also and he closed his guard up tighter. They actually looked like they thought they were prepared to combat him. 

They thought they could hold their ground at the level they were. 

This new form was sharper; a type of ki unfamiliar to him, but nothing about it gave him any reason to believe he couldn’t break it apart just the same. They were still on the defensive, he was not. His fury was not going to be contained by fools who could not even attempt the first move. 

His loose, relaxed posture vanished and his fingers extended out with his palm flat. Anger flickered from within and he drew that out to his fingertips, surging and crackling, manifesting so much power right down through his arm that energy formed solid like an extension of him. Sharper and more deadly than any real sword, he charged right for them prepared to strike them both through. 

“Vegeta—” Kakarot called to the other and they split apart, in an attempt to try and split his attention at his swift approach. The two of them cast glances back and forth to each other across the battlefield and Vegito snarled in the midst of it, just barely clipping Vegeta in a swipe. The spots of blood and flecks of blue thread attested to just how close his brush with him had been, and the second swing would not miss when he picked up his speed, drawing back his arm. 

Eyes moved in from the other, in time to see Vegito’s approach and instead of dodging him, Vegeta chose—this time—to parry him with the same technique. Crackles of energy flashed between them and Vegeta attempted to push back, arm trembling to hold his ground. His strength was enough to keep from buckling beneath Vegito’s sheer force, but he couldn’t overpower him and his energy quickly got swallowed up and cut through when Vegeta backed off even a little. 

Vegeta’s decision to back away, had been to attempt to throw a fist at him. A move so plain and baffling, that Vegito let it connect. The force of it actually moved him, but not much. It stung, but not much more than if his daughter hit him. He had a better chance in maintaining the energy sword and holding his ground directly. The result would have been the same. Foolish. He balled up his own fist to return the gift in wrapped in a better package. 

But knuckles never connected to a face, instead, caught by another hand. Kakarot, teleporting in before he could reach him. 

“You—” He ground his teeth together. 

“Eyes on me, fucker—” Vegeta cut back between them, causing him to take his attention back and forth between them just long enough to miss whichever one of them actually did power up the punch that sent him plummeting down. 

The force of it stunned him, and he only barely managed to right himself—breaking earth below him to land on his feet. Being tricked by their teamwork incurred a sound from within that ripped like a shriek from his throat. How dare they work in tandem...How dare they think they could distract him from destroying the both of them—

Fissures split along the ground at his feet and he funneled everything through him, restraint snapping as his desire to break them increased. Whatever state of Super Saiyan he ascended to, didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was tearing them apart. They didn’t deserve to be at each other’s side so carelessly. They didn’t appreciate the ease of their companionship. Nor did they hear the emptiness caused by destroying each other in the creation of a single body. They appreciated nothing, understood nothing. They had evidently fused before...and retained nothing from it. 

“I will kill you both,” he howled, shedding layers of the earth even further around him, until the ground sunk away at his feet. He left it hollowed under him, when he shot back up toward them, forgoing Vegeta to alleviate the problem of the one who could teleport. Goku caught on to this plan quickly and expected to get away with his game of tag again, flitting around wildly; but Vegito was powered up with fury and he cut him off with a harsh foot across his skull. 

Before he let Kakarot connect with any surface, he teleported to the other side and volleyed him back in the opposite direction—keeping him far from Vegeta. They would not be allowed to work in tandem anymore. Kakarot needed to be brought to a stop and then he could wring all the vitality out of Vegeta right over him and make him feel every ounce of despair. Kakarot’s body smashed down into the hard ground, making another heavy depression—more scars in the terrain from their battling. 

When Goku tried to recover, he only got struck back down. Repeatedly. The bloody mist he started to cough proved just how intense Vegito’s hits really were. Every blow was a traumatic event and he refused to give Kakarot the time to try and teleport away for enough recovery. The haze of blue began to ebb away from him before long, flickering with each strike and Vegito snatched him by the orange of his gi, swinging him closer to him and holding his mostly limp, struggling body in front of him. 

“Your form is new, but power times power is still more. I could fucking eat both of you for a snack. You’re nothin’ to me and that you think you can stop me laughable. I haven’t even started. Stop being a nuisance and wait your damn turn,” he dropped down and sunk a fist into his gut, relishing in the rush of air he heard leave his body in a hoarse whimper. Blood dotted his arms from Kakarot’s choking and he felt him sagging, but struggling to keep himself from losing his control. It was just like Kakarot to keep pushing himself. “I’ll be back for you,” he dropped him and harshly punched him down. 

The satisfaction of watching his legs crumble under him was immense. His whole body tingled in the sensation. Destroy them. Tear them apart. 

He turned on him, to leave him behind and hunt the other one down. Vegeta wasn’t far behind, coming right at him. Coming right for his own demise. How convenient. Neither of them were smart enough to leave. They weren’t smart enough not to stick him with this existence, so they could die together in this world, the same way they chose to stop existing together in his own. The empty void they left him with, they could feel it, together. He would break them within sight of each other, then drag them off and kill them apart. 

Let Goku be the first to see it, he decided, forming a dense ball of energy, sizzling and burning in his hand. Vegeta wouldn’t be able to avoid it, even if he saw it coming at him. He couldn’t teleport like the other two could. If it was Goku, he might have had a chance, but Vegito outmatched them both. This silly blue hair nonsense aside. 

“Don’t you do it—” Trembling words came from behind him and he scoffed at them, before he even moved; but then found, he could not immediately move. 

What. 

He struggled just to move his head, taken by surprise at the temporary paralysis. Kakarot was back on his feet...sort of...He was up barely enough to get his hands up, with a new color to his form. Red. What were these forms? He didn’t understand them, but he was finding himself irritated by this unusual technique that had gotten him locked into place for a brief second before he started to resurface his control and overpower it. 

“Vegito stop— you don’t have to do this—” the struggle in Goku’s voice was clear, and the trembling in his arms told just how long he could maintain his posture. His attempt to protect Vegeta from him would only last a brief moment, but the very action took Vegito’s attention entirely back to him. Very well. He could die first. 

“You would like to go first, I see,” he sneered and stomped his foot down, shattering his hold like glass. Goku fell right back to the ground like he was caught in a shockwave. The short distance between them closed in a second and he scooped him right back up by the collar again, bringing him face to face. “You made this. You are this—You are this—But I am not you. I am missing something and you haven’t given me an answer. You aren’t needed anymore.” 

“Fine,” Goku choked, licking blood from his split lips, holding his hands up. “Maybe...I’m not, but let him go…?”

A full moment elapsed before he could truly register the nature of his request. Half-lidded eyes struggled to keep eye contact with his, but their intensity held just the same and his fingers tightened in the fabric. He spat in a deep, forceful, hiss, “I’ll send you to the afterlife together—” 

“—No you won’t.” 

He spun at the declaration. Vegeta. 

“You keep talking shit but you won’t do it. Or you’d have already done it. Drop Kakarot. Let this go. We’ll send you back home. You can work this out. You can figure out what you want, but this isn’t it.” 

“Shut up—what do you know—” Every word he spoke, stuck into him like nails being driven into him and he quivered viciously. The hands he held Kakarot’s gi by, moved to his neck and he had every thought and desire to break the bones under his fingers. Hear each one snap and crack. One by one. Crunch them until his head couldn’t hold itself and then ragdoll him across the lawn into Vegeta. Make him hold the empty shell after sending the soul off. Or just hold him until he couldn’t breathe instead and watch the cognizance disappear from his eyes. Destroy him and then destroy Vegeta after showing him the proof. 

“Then do it, fucking do it. You have him, show me you can do it, you big fucking coward. You’re half me, aren’t you?” Vegeta goaded him. The limp body in his hands didn’t even twitch—despite this—and he snarled, energy pooling off his body furiously. 

His heel cracked the earth again beneath him, “Stop talking—” 

“Do it. Do it goddamn it, if we’re going to die together, you have to start somewhere,” Vegeta yelled, and his own sneer hit so close that he could feel it like it came from within, resonating unconcomfortably. 

“I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP,” he howled, letting Kakarot slip out of his fingers and backhanding him so hard that he shot him right across the field, like a rocket into Vegeta—sending them both flying when they collided. The shockwave of the impact they made left the briefest flicker of comfort deep within him, but it faded so quickly that it spilled indescribable misery right back in. 

And he was done playing games with them, he could find another pair of them to fix his problem. This particular set was done. He was going to destroy them.


	4. Void

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Making Wishes

He could hear them. 

Yelling for each other. 

Between every blow he delivered, breaking the guard of one and throwing him down into the other. Every attempted counter was fizzled out and crushed like nothing in his hands. Whatever forms they bounced around in between, he knocked them right back out of, and then pushed himself steeper and steeper into depths they couldn't reach as they were. His energy was heavier, and vast. It was only a matter of time before they would simply lose their steam and he would overpower them without so much as lifting more than an arm. 

They had to know this. They had to feel this. Their energy was waning. Yet they pushed. Continuing to go back to each other’s side. Continuing to protect each other. Still willing to fight a losing battle. 

Because it was a losing battle. They were going to lose. 

“Vegito—” Goku called out, holding to Vegeta and maintaining a defensive position at quite a distance. Not that distance really protected them. The only defense they had was Goku’s ability to teleport just the same. “This isn’t really what you wa—” 

“Shut your mouth, Kakarot,” he snapped back quickly, “What I want, you can’t provide. You in my timeline ruined everything and I can’t get it back, I can’t fill what you took away. And I can’t even ask you what it is you took with you,” he howled, feeling the pressure start to build painfully in his chest again—heart beating so painfully he could hear it thundering in his head, but just not enough to drown out the horrible discord

“Killing us isn’t going to fix you…” 

“Then I’ll just go to another dimension and do it again. And again,” he resolved, glancing around, knowing that he could find the dragon balls, possibly within the span of a handful of minutes in this place. The dragon balls, which had once been a trial to collect, were basically their wish granting playthings. He wasn’t wishing himself across spans of time, he was simply moving across weaknesses in parallel spaces, he could continue to do that forever. As long as multiverses existed, he could cross them. He couldn’t control the time at which he landed, but he didn’t need to. He didn’t care where the universe placed the so called parallel. 

He had the same two targets. Until he ran into a universe without dragon balls, he would continue to bounce until his questions were answered. 

“...Vegeta…” Goku mumbled to receive a nod back. A brief moment between them that left Vegito folding his arms and eying the two in their quiet communication. He left them to interact for far too long and he hovered in front of them, silencing any further back and forth. Goku could only address him directly when his forceful energy was threatening death on anything else. “...Listen...Vegito…”

He clipped his attempt to talk him down again. None of what they said were solutions. “I will keep making wishes until I have either killed all of you or until there’s peace in my head. I am done listening to you, because you have nothing to say.” 

Kakarot took a deep breath and stared Vegito down, closing his eyes. “Alright, if that’s yer answer… Then, can’t help that…” He opened his eyes and abruptly placed two fingers to his forehead and they vanished. Not just from the direct vicinity. They vanished away a fairly large distance. 

The moment he took to realize the complete absence of them, left him to reign back in his focus and try to hunt them down. But he frowned, opening his eyes after another minute passed, to find they simply vanished entirely. He could not feel their ki, even faintly at a distance. He couldn’t teleport after them, if he could not sense them. They couldn’t have vanished to another plane so quickly. They didn’t die—. They weren’t possibly so far away in that short of a time that he couldn’t reach out and catch their signature—

Where did they—

“Sorry to keep you waitin’, but the only one who’s goin’ to be making any wishes today...is me, Vegito,” he heard in his ear in the briefest instant before a fist collided with the side of his head. The power of the impact left him seeing flashes in his vision. For a moment, he felt all of his thoughts crash and scatter into pure cluttered disorder, before he righted himself and turned back on the incoming assailant. 

And he was right in his face, with speed that wasn’t like the other two. Vegito had to back away quicker, and put all of his power into dodging the next swing—staring into the face of the one who returned in place of the two who vanished. Recognition slowly came with the clothing first, the familiar vest that he’d seen on his sons. He abruptly flitted away from the spin aimed to kick him, knowing that he would feel it if it connected. This wasn’t the same threat of the separated entities. This was an actual threat. 

The face he stared into had every feature of his own, just presented in slightly different ways. Staring into a stunning mirror that came at him, cracked something within and he didn’t even attempt to dodge the next strike, taking the full blow across the cheek from the charged swing of an arm. The second blow, barely missed and he struggled to collect himself and teleport some distance between them. 

“Sorry, I’m not letting you do that. You, ain’t getting out of my reach, Vegito, I can’t let you escape, I’m on limited time here.” 

“Then I’ll just have to wait you out,” he muttered, but felt no passion in the declaration. The Vegeta part of him insisted on continuing to goad and to fight back, regardless of his enemy. The Goku part of him, yearned to feel the power of this enemy coming at him, itching to test his own strength. He hated both of these parts. That wasn’t what he wanted. That was what they wanted. He wanted to fill the void. He wanted all of the sounds in his head to stop ringing against each other. He wanted to feel less alone. 

He wanted to exist. 

But his existence wasn’t really even his own, his existence was born of the existence of two beings who needed each other’s existence to exist in harmony. And they ruined it. They didn’t think of the consequences of this. They didn’t consider what would happen if they were stuck like that forever. If he slowly lost the pieces of them and became more and more of his own person. If he began to loathe what they left him with and had nothing to fall back on to reference. Memories fading slowly and no one to ask what was happening to him. Why he was becoming so agitated. So restless. 

Why he felt lost. 

The punishment of a foot into his ribs, left him gasping for air in the midst of grasping for his loose thoughts. They were scattered everywhere and he was trying to pick them back up. In moment, he’d lost control of the fight and now everything was spiraling. The sensations he was feeling left tremors in his spine and weakness in his body that prevented him from fully appreciating the ability to withstand the next collision, and he plummeted into the hard earth. So hard that he saw black for a moment. 

When the pain brought him back, he couldn’t find the rage he had before to bubble up and fight back with. It left the him the moment he saw this man’s face. Instead, he screamed, drawing out every ounce of despair he could muster from within. He powered himself with that instead, uncaring of what degree it took him. Saiyan forms meant nothing to him anymore. He’d stopped caring about gaining power. This person here in front of him, was the closest thing he’d come across to his level to ever give him a reason to feel threatened since he’d fused. 

A person who was also now made up of the same two people. 

“What do you call yourself,” he asked, hoarsely, drawing hands back. He made it very clear he was going to attack him with every ounce of what he had, but he wanted to know, anyway. 

“We are Gogeta,” he answered, understanding exactly the intention, with the same motion—intending to give him back precisely what he was given. “We’re going to let you go back home now, Vegito.” 

“...Over my dead body,” he whispered, muscles tightening. His whole body pulled it from within, pooling every bit of what he had into his arms, collecting it into his fingertips. The earth shaking burst power of Final Flash and the full throttle distance of the Kamehameha blended together to be an all or nothing. He tapped deep down into what he had to combat a mirror opponent, fighting the same move.

When he released it, he couldn’t turn it back and he had no intention of trying. He didn’t come here to beg for forgiveness. He came here for answers. He left his world to escape the deafening roar of clashing noises in his head. They should have stabilized together as one, so why did he only continue to feel his mind decay?

What did he yearn for, when he never could have had anything to begin with? He never existed before. Nothing was ever his to have, or to lose. 

Throaty screams came from deep in his chest, drawing everything from his lungs—emptying his body out of energy, colliding with Gogeta across from him. His power was matched. Their power was almost equal. The world around them trembled from the might of their energy battling back and forth. He could burst him down, but tap himself out or he could wait him out. He could wait and see what he would do, and if he would try the same. 

Instead, he found himself, staring down his opponent...his resolve weakening. 

For the briefest moment, close to him, he did not feel alone. What did he yearn for… That feeling. That one, there. 

To feel like that. 

For a moment, the void was gone. Artificially filled by something that wasn’t real, but real enough to cement the truth. The question he demanded be answered. He’d come and tried to beat it out of the wrong source when Gogeta was the closest thing he’d ever find in any existence to compare to what he was missing. The closest solution to the bond his pieces shared when they were separated. 

Vegeta and Goku, separated, had each other. They filled a necessary emptiness in each other they hadn’t even realized. 

But, combined, he had no one to be that same thing. No one could fill the emptiness within him as he was, they never could and they never would in his world, naturally. He had been given a cursed existence to begin with. Doomed to deteriorate. They couldn’t have known they were destroying him the moment they destroyed the second body in fusing him away. They hadn’t even recognized the necessity of each other back then, yet. 

Facing Gogeta, he braced himself against his might, but then he let his own power go, fading into the massive stream of overwhelming energy. The brief moment he caught the wide pair of eyes, left him with a short smile. He was tired. 

Very tired. 

He came for an answer. And he did get his answer. 

Gogeta could not dispel his blast quickly enough to stop it from happening, and Vegito accepted the full force of the Final Kamehameha from a foreign form of him. One that understood itself better...whose parts understood the value of each other better. Lucky them...But at least he could finally release the pressure and he felt the deep pull of relief wash over him and then everything went black.


	5. Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Serendipity

“Down here, they’re—”

“Dad—“

Gogeta heard them calling from a short distance, where he stood at the lip of the crater made from the clash of the two superpowers, that never should have collided in the first place. Their voices faded to the silence of the aftermath and the cold wind that floated through the quickly made battlefield. His time was growing short, but he remained, the only one standing when the light of Vegito burned and flickered out. 

He stepped down, into loosened earth, towards the fallen opponent to survey the damage—to witness the finality of madness that could have been his if the circumstances had been the same. Had his world been the same, they could have been this. He understood the implication. He already knew the reason. Coming down to see it, only solidified the painful truth that it was too late to reverse the damage done here… All that was left, was to put it back where it really belonged.

“They’re…” he heard from behind him; a short breath sucked in, either by shock or empathy. Knowing Gohan, possibly both. “They….split...back—!” 

“Yeah,” he answered, feeling the presence of others come down after. “We overpowered the potara. They broke.”

“That’s good then isn’t it—but then…” he paused, standing at his shoulder, face contorted with confusion that he could see clearly at a side glance. “What’s...h...happening…?”

“Gohan,” he didn’t answer him directly, reaching a hand out to place a hand on the young man’s shoulder, to take his attention back where he needed it. “I need you to do me a favor, and go get the dragon balls. Bulma has them. Or should. Quickly. Before they fade completely.” 

“Y...yeah.”

Without another word, Gohan turned from the scene. The importance of task was immeasurable, and Gogeta’s tone conveyed it just enough to make him move, flying away in a burst of speed toward the group that didn’t catch them at the scene just yet. He was left alone again, with only Piccolo a short stride away, watching over the two fallen bodies, leaning into each other. Fading. 

The hazy mist of light that collected around them, seemed to be bleeding away the very properties that kept them anchored in the physical plane—like sugar dissolving into water. Bittersweet and glittery; hands clasped together tightly in spite of absent clarity. The damage sustained was so great, that Vegito was split apart forcibly and the aftermath left his pieces beyond the scope of recovery. Vegito’s destruction, and the destruction of the potara, was breaking them down and returning them to the universe itself. They had been fused for so long...there was no other end result. 

He ground his teeth, fists curling at his sides. 

“What will you do now?”

“Send them back to their world before they vanish into this one,” he answered Piccolo’s question, the obvious question sitting over the discreet underlying one. “They were already gone the moment they permanently fused. I just gave them a proper burial.”

“They did what they had to, I can’t imagine any other reason to end up that way.”

“I know. And we did too,” he tilted his head down, eyes falling over the two who made up the current form of him. Like Vegito, he was them. But he was aware. He was acutely aware of them. He was Vegeta. He was Goku. But he was also neither. He was all three. He felt their emotions separately, and together. He took them all and threaded them within and harmonized them. He blended the feelings and he breathed, slowly. Deeply. Evenly. He didn’t bluster, boldly and then succumb to the madness when the distractions disappeared. Vegito burned hotly, and then boiled over at a time when they were at their least harmonized, with a fusion technique, that didn’t even try to compromise their energies at all.

He was doomed to destroy himself.

Gogeta refused to leave his place at the foot of their downfall, knowing he could have retrieved the dragon balls faster than Gohan, for the very reason that he had to see them through. He was meant to witness this. They were every reflection of what he had within. Only he had the fortune of knowing and seeing the outcome that could have been and what he embraced instead. 

In the heap they made, he thought he saw movement, but there was no way either of them could still really be alive. Vegito had been torn apart so viciously that the force of it couldn’t have left either of them with much vitality, if any at all. The blast had been unforgiving, leaving them with burned, bloodied bodies even before they’d begun to lose their stability and start to fade. Movement...he thought, had to be an illusion, because of the sheer scale of their clash…

But with widening eyes, he watched a hand lift with immeasurable effort. Fingers struggled to curl, taking hold of what was left of the fabric over the other’s chest. Lips parted, struggling to catch breaths that wouldn’t mean very much for very much longer. Every soundless gasp took seconds away, but to be closer appeared worth the sacrifice. To drag any part of his body over, made a clear display of agony; but clearly, the freshly separated Vegeta needed to drape himself across Goku. To hold one hand must not have been enough; he struggled to take the other, as well. 

Unbelievably, the body beneath shifted to turn his cheek flush against the other’s temple. The collapsed Goku could barely move, but he needed it as much as that Vegeta. They both knew they weren’t going to last much longer. All they had left was the few moments before they’d slip away into another realm entirely, dispersed back into a waiting void. 

Between them, no fear showed present. None. The display was more of tired relief. Eyes closed, when they both found each other comfortable. The years as Vegito melted away in the last moments, shedding the weight of the nightmare they lived stuck as one lonely, agonized person. Vegito, who would never find peace as he was, died with his components able to have their last farewell together. 

They had to be that way to protect the things they loved, but they gave up things they loved to do it. Gogeta knew that, if told the outcome, both of them would do everything the same. To give each other up, meant to protect everyone. But that didn’t mean, they weren’t going to embrace the last moments desperately. 

Did they know where they were? Did they have the capacity to care? Gogeta had no intention to speak a word to either of them to answer those questions; taking a step back and out of their bubble as the sky darkened above them—a sign the dragon was being summoned nearby. He glanced back to the sound of Gohan, calling to him. He had already called Shenron, saving him the time. 

The dragon’s long body appeared across the sky, snaking through clouds and twisting around itself—filling the the dimming sky with the warm glow of its presence. The deep rumble of the dragon’s voice echoed across the recently made battlefield; barely asking, but more demanding their wish upon the completed summoning. This was not an unfamiliar sight, but this time, it couldn’t be done at a leisurely pace. Disregarding Shenron’s usually ignored lack of patience, the two fading forms in question were quickly losing their grip on the physical plane. They had to go while the dragon’s power could touch them. 

“It’s my wish,” he spoke, drawing eyes when he stepped out of the sunken earth, looking up and calling the dragon’s attention to him. He commanded his own presence as he was, but he was closing in on the end of his time and the defusion was starting to make its presence known by faint tingling in his fingertips. He couldn’t wait around any longer. “Send them, these two who came through from the other world, back to the world they came from...Let them die in the universe they belonged to, is that within your power?” 

He took a deep breath, feeling the trickling in his fingers grow tighter. The fusion was weakening by the second. Every second counting down to their split, were the seconds closer to the end of their counterparts. They were connected to the residual power Vegito collided with and clung to. When he was gone, their stability would crack and shatter like glass.

Send them back, Shenron. Before it’s too late. 

“It is beyond my power,” the dragon’s voice boomed, crushing like a hammer. Eyes widened and Gogeta took a full step back, confusion taking the features of his face. What. Why?

Why? They got here to begin with by Dragon Balls—

“Is it because there’s two of them now…?” Piccolo suggested, as alarmed as he, but able to make quicker deductions in the face of rejection. “There was only one when he made the wish the first time… He can only send one of them back? Is that it?” 

“Shenron...Is that true?” Gogeta called, fists curling, a tremble present in his hands. They didn’t have time for him to try and hop over to Namek and beg a favor. 

“One may return,” the dragon answered.

“Shit… What do we do…” He sucked in a breath, “I’m going to defuse soon. When I do...The last of what’s keeping them together…” 

“Just send one back?” 

“No,” he snapped at him, grinding his teeth. Even separated from them, Gogeta knew he couldn’t pull them apart. That would leave no different of an outcome than what had led to Vegito’s madness. Emptiness. They had to stay together....but they should be home. “There has to be a solution…” The quiver crawled up to his elbows. Not yet… 

“We could fuse them back together if we had earrings…” Gohan offered, “but…” 

“We don’t…” 

Above them, the dragon hovered, growing impatient and rumbling, “What is your wish?” The dragon requested again, but Gogeta had no way to word it. He had no idea for sending them both back safely. Once they faded, they wouldn’t be able to be returned to their own world ever again. They would be lost to the echoes of this parallel universe Vegito’s wish had them randomly dumped into. No part of them would ever exist again where they originated. 

“I...don’t know...I…”

“—...S…’kay.” The weak syllables took eyes back into the the drop, where they fell. No one spoke a word back, frozen by the half-smile and the lazy “okay” gesture made by a tired hand. The Goku of the other world could barely utter enough sound to functionally communicate, but Gogeta could read just enough from his lips, that his attempt to do so impacted him far more than he realized it would. The real impact didn’t come to Gogeta himself, but in the deconstruction of him. 

The dragon balls can’t fix everything, he’d mouthed to them, in the last moment. 

In the brief overlap, Gogeta defused; returning as Goku and Vegeta to watch the last glimpse of them. Neither of fallen two made any efforts to fight their fate. The inevitability couldn’t be contested and the years of Vegito had likely seeped deeply into the very fibers of both of them. Moments of peace, finally, were probably worth more than dying in a familiar world, after all. And the tired Goku even found the last of what he had to wave them off, smiling in that way he’d do even disappearing into nothing. 

They were gone before the dust around their feet settled; and with the sky darkened by shenron’s summoning, the glow left behind slowly faded back into the darkness, swallowed up in shadows. No words were spoken for long, empty minutes, in the cold absence of light. Nothing that could be said would fix the tone, but the moment of silence projected a nod of respect, as if seeing off fallen comrades. 

Then the light returned from above, accompanied by the glittering trails in seven directions—the scattering of dragon balls. They had dismissed the dragon, when it became apparent no wish was being made after all. Nothing could be done about it. They had tried. For the sake of the two who entered their world uninvited, they had attempted to send them back. But being sent back wasn’t what either of them showed any real concern about in the last seconds. They were saved already. 

Stepping down to the empty place Vegito fell, Vegeta glanced back up at Goku. They were both worn. Though the trial had been short, the impact had been far greater than possibly any other battle. He still held Goku’s hand in his own and made no efforts to let go. When he stepped further, Goku stepped down with him. 

“Kakarot, I feel like we’ve witnessed something very important here.” 

“Yeah…Kinda...weird, watchin’ yourself die. But...I guess, maybe it was...not gonna end any other way…”

“He could have ended up anywhere else, Kakarot,” Vegeta looked up, watching the last echoes of Shenron’s summoning vanish from the sky, from the very spot they disappeared from. “Coming here pissed off and demanding answers like we knew jackshit about what he wanted…” 

“Sounds like something he got from your half.” 

“Fuck off,” Vegeta snarled at him, pulling him closer to butt his knuckles against his forehead. “We’re not going to end up like that. I don’t know what kind of stupid world he came from, but ours is different, obviously. We’ve passed the point where he got stuck that way. We know things they didn’t.” 

“We got the fusion dance now, anyway. Good thing he didn’t show up much sooner, right?” Goku added, grinning at Vegeta’s weak and contradictory display of dismay toward him. “But, if it comes down to it, I don’t think we’ll have to hop worlds to figure out we’re just lonely.” 

“Tch, like I’d ever be lonely without you,” he pushed him, but still didn’t let go of his hand—  
directing him out of the sunken earth. 

“Like you’ll ever be without me,” Goku shot back; pulling him up in response, once he reached the top, refusing to let go even then. 

Vegeta scoffed at him, letting the warmth of the sun soak into him, “Yeah, I’ll kill us both first.” 

“That’s the spirit.”


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The closing.

“You sure?”

“We don’t have any other choice, at this point.” Deep labored breaths cut through thick air—heavy with the smell of dust and blood. “If we don’t, we’ll lose. I’m not about to lose, Kakarot.” A snarl into the desolate battlefield, accompanied by a defiant foot, stomping into the deadened earth.

“Y’know Whis said, with all our god ki at the level it is now, we might not separate again, you sure you wanna?” He asked again, turning his head to glance at him from where he stood back to back with him. 

“Since when the fuck do you care about consequences, Kakarot.”

Goku wiped the blood from his nose and turned a smirk across his lips. “Hopin’ you’d say that, to be honest. But had ta ask. Or we might end up with a repeat of last time.”

“Can’t repeat something we’ve never done, idiot. Give me the damn thing,” he held his hand out at his side, palm turned up expectantly. The wait for the item was short, deposited by a trembling hand. Neither of them had the capacity to perform the dance that would lead to the same result, but they needed the power if they had any chance of winning the fight. They were at the end of their capacity separately, but together they had enough. Together, they could trash this opponent. “You ready, idiot?” 

“Now or never!” Goku called back, sticking his earring to his ear, while Vegeta performed the same action behind him. 

Only a brief second elapsed after both earrings were placed, and then both of them felt the pull—a powerful gravity so overwhelming that it warped all perception until the whole world appeared white for a moment. Trembling hands and burning tingling across skin faded away to a smooth, low hum. Calm. The singular form to emerge out of the flash, flexed new fists and raised his arms to draw the force of his aura through this newly acquired body. 

With a deep, low breath, he listened to the tune of the colliding forces within him. Two heart beats, falling into perfect harmony within him. Beating as one, perfect sound. Slowly, he drew his first breath into his new body and opened his eyes, born again. 

“I am Vegito. You ready to play?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I purposefully did not tag the second fusion, because he was meant to be a surprise. Gotcha.
> 
> This was the grand finale of Kakavege Week. I wrote it while writing all the others and is my personal favorite. It concludes 3 months of writing. 80k+ words and dedication for no other reason than my dumb ass said I could do it. So there you have it. 
> 
> If you have no opinions to give on anything else, I would be curious to see what you have to say on this one! And I hope you enjoyed it marginally. Thanks for readin’. Now off to my neglected monster fic.


End file.
